I imagine it drastically changes the power consumption, especially if the default is 6 pages. I always got two full weeks of daily reading with my Sony, reading 2-4 hours a day. I wonder if the Kobo set to refresh on every page would give me the same?

Every page refresh doesn't affect battery life too badly. I download 2 newspapers over wifi (and read them) as well as other reading every day, run with every page refresh and light on at all times when reading and since a full charge on Monday I'm only down to 66% on Friday. And actually I did download at least one other book over wireless and briefly surfed the web this week too.

I'm not trying to say "The Kobo is the best reader" -- just that you seem unnecessarily hung up on this ghosting thing.

Unnecessarily? If there is something that I don't care to see when I'm reading, I wouldn't call it hung up. I simply would choose a reader that didn't do that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by oj829

A bonus, then. Frankly, if I had to look at that contrast-flash with EVERY page turn, it would drive me a bit batty. Again, YMMV.

Contrast-FLASH?
Sorry, that too would be something I don't think I'd care for either. I don't mind the formatting glitches or grammar mistakes when I'm reading, but I do want a clear screen with nothing flashing at me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by robko

Every page refresh doesn't affect battery life too badly. I download 2 newspapers over wifi (and read them) as well as other reading every day, run with every page refresh and light on at all times when reading and since a full charge on Monday I'm only down to 66% on Friday.

That certainly sounds like good enough battery life. And the device is certainly light weight. I was impressed by that aspect of the reader. I just didn't like what I saw on the screen. I don't read in dark rooms, so I have no need of a backlight, but I guess for those who read before sleep, it would be a nice feature too.

Contrast-FLASH?
Sorry, that too would be something I don't think I'd care for either. I don't mind the formatting glitches or grammar mistakes when I'm reading, but I do want a clear screen with nothing flashing at me.

I believe it is the screen refresh that is being referred to. The whole screen "flashes" completely black for a fraction of a second to get rid of the ghosting before clearing and displaying the black text on white background. This happens on all e-ink readers, it's just a question of how often. Most people find that after reading for a while initially they stop noticing it unless they are looking for it (kinda like when your eyes blink).

I believe it is the screen refresh that is being referred to. The whole screen "flashes" completely black for a fraction of a second to get rid of the ghosting before clearing and displaying the black text on white background. This happens on all e-ink readers, it's just a question of how often.

Sorry, but it doesn't happen on Sonys. I can't speak for other brands. Or, perhaps I should say; it doesn't happen on the two Sony's we have, or the ones I looked at in the shops. The only time you can see this happen is when the reader has been turned completely off, then turned on again. It doesn't occur between page turns. That is NOT something I would care to see on a regular basis.

Sorry, but it doesn't happen on Sonys. I can't speak for other brands. Or, perhaps I should say; it doesn't happen on the two Sony's we have, or the ones I looked at in the shops. The only time you can see this happen is when the reader has been turned completely off, then turned on again. It doesn't occur between page turns. That is NOT something I would care to see on a regular basis.

Stitchawl

Interesting you should make that claim since ghosting is inherent to all eInk devices -- even eInk corporation admits that though stating the newer displays can go longer between refreshes and the refresh is faster with the caveat that the speed depends on the supporting electronics. The Sony PRS-T2 refreshes every 15 pages and after 10 pages the ghost images of previous lines show quite noticeably when the new page has white space where previous pages had text. The Kindle PaperWhite I played with had noticeable ghosting before it's refresh cycle. As noted in a Gizmodo review where the comment was that it showed ghosting before the every 5th page refresh cycle.

Did the ghosting bother me? Not really since you get to not noticing it after a while? Does the flash to black bother me? Again, after a short while you don't really notice it anymore.

See the images above. Look at the washed out blacks and ghosting on the Kobo and look at the deep blacks on the Kindle and Sony.

I played with cover images from several books in Photoshop and converted them to 16 gray level from colour. The Kobo comes closer to the results I got from the cover images I played with and converted with Photoshop's grey scale conversion. The images from the other reader looks like an image converted using a desaturation technique. I do remember printing black and white photographs on high contrast paper just because the images looked snappier but at the price of losing detail in the highlights and shadows.

There is an interesting tutorial on using GIMP to convert images to B&W which shows some of the differences using different methods of mixing the RGB components in the conversion process. There is also a 16 gray plugin for GIMP which I am going to have to try.

As per a PM which asked just what I meant by blockiness, I've attached 3 images to this message. The first (cover.jpeg) is the original cover that my daughter obtained when she picked up Catching Fire. The second is the image converted to 4 bit B&W (16 level greyscale) without dithering -- this is very close to how the colour cover image looked as rendered by the Kobo. The third is the image converted to 4 bit B&W with dithering. The fourth image (catching_fire.jpg) is the final version we used with smoothing, resizing, contrast and brightness changes.

Notice the banding around the mocking jay in the second image visible even in the thumbnail and the artifacting around Suzanne Collins' name in images 2 and 3 if you view the full size image.

Attached Thumbnails

Last edited by DNSB; 01-12-2013 at 12:53 PM.
Reason: added viewing full size image to see artifacting

Interesting you should make that claim since ghosting is inherent to all eInk devices -- even eInk corporation admits that though stating the newer displays can go longer between refreshes and the refresh is faster with the caveat that the speed depends on the supporting electronics. The Sony PRS-T2 refreshes every 15 pages and after 10 pages the ghost images of previous lines show quite noticeably when the new page has white space where previous pages had text.

I'll take your word for it.
But today, being curious, I asked several different people to look at my e-reader, people who normally don't use it, and none could see any ghosting or flashing. I guess we're just lucky, huh? But at the same time, ghosting was VERY obvious to me when I picked up both the Kobos in the shop. So much so that I quickly decided against them. The price was good. The size and weight was great. But I didn't like what I saw on the screen. I liked the Kindles and Sonys better. They didn't show me any ghosting or flashing. Sorry... maybe I just go used to it too quickly? Like before the first page?

I'll take your word for it.
But today, being curious, I asked several different people to look at my e-reader, people who normally don't use it, and none could see any ghosting or flashing. I guess we're just lucky, huh? But at the same time, ghosting was VERY obvious to me when I picked up both the Kobos in the shop. So much so that I quickly decided against them. The price was good. The size and weight was great. But I didn't like what I saw on the screen. I liked the Kindles and Sonys better. They didn't show me any ghosting or flashing. Sorry... maybe I just go used to it too quickly? Like before the first page?

Stitchawl

For the Kindle4 NT model, one of the software updates (4.01??) allowed setting the page refresh to be set for 1 or 6 pages. The white/black/white cycle on each page turn though somewhat annoying did remove the ghosting that customers were complaining about.

One other customer had this to say about the Kindle Touch "I am on my second Kindle Touch. It has not been the positive experience I was expecting. On the first Kindle, the ghosting was so bad I could see the previous two pages in the background. I called CS and the lady who helped me did her best to solve the situation to NO avail. I asked if a new device could be sent to me. She agreed. My second Kindle works somewhat better. It's sometimes hard to get to the following page and in some cases is very difficult to use the content page without opening the wrong book. I regret having sold my Kindle 3".

As for Sony, one reviewer had this to say about the PRS-T2: "Whenever you access the menu drawer at the bottom of the screen, dusty, ghost-like artifacts are left behind when you return to the book. All e-ink readers suffer from some artifacting, but you usually see things clean up whenever the next page turn happens. In many cases during my testing, however, these menu and navigation artifacts stuck around for a couple of page turns. On a device explicitly designed to foster concentration, it’s a big distraction. It’s also something that shouldn’t happen on a current-generation Pearl E-Ink screen."

All devices that use current eInk screens suffer from ghosting though the level of ghosting varies and will need to refresh the screen at some point to clean it up.

David, thank you for telling us what other users have found. But frankly, I don't care about how others view something. I'll be the one looking at my e-reader, so I want to choose the reader that best suits 'me.' If I see ghosting, I don't want to buy that e-reader. If I see that the contrast needs to be fiddled with, I don't want to buy that e-reader. Please let me choose an e-reader based on what I see, rather than what others report. What I saw was that the Sonys and Kindles in the shop looked better... to me. Someone else may choose differently. Don't take it personally if I don't like the Kobo. It's no reflection on you. Choosing an e-reader is like choosing a race horse. We all have different preferences no matter what the racing form tells us.

As per a PM which asked just what I meant by blockiness, I've attached 3 images to this message. The first (cover.jpeg) is the original cover that my daughter obtained when she picked up Catching Fire. The second is the image converted to 4 bit B&W (16 level greyscale) without dithering -- this is very close to what the colour cover image looked as rendered by the Kobo. The third is the image converted to 4 bit B&W with dithering. The fourth image (catching_fire.jpg) is the final version we used with smoothing, resizing, contrast and brightness changes.

Notice the banding around the mocking jay in the second image visible even in the thumbnail and the artifacting around Suzanne Collins' name in images 2 and 3 if you view the full size image.